A few days in...

This has been what I would deem a successful homeschooling week so far. We've covered all kinds of topics without sitting at the kitchen table for too many hours, and we've gotten in some extras.

Monday - you can read about that here. The kids also went to my mom's for an overnight that evening and watched an episode of Unnatural History, a show where a teenage boy solves crimes and unsolved mysteries of ancient history. Yes, I count that as somewhat educational!

Tuesday - we did the Three R's, then went roller-skating at the first homeschool skate session of the fall. There was even a bonus... static electricity! The kids zapped each other (and me) as often as they could. It was especially dramatic when they turned the lights down. Then we came home and did our science experiments... bending water with a static-y comb/balloon, making pieces of paper dance, sticking balloons to the wall, etc. I decided not to make the kids do lab sheets right now - instead, a demonstrated understanding of what is happening is enough for me.

Wednesday - Again, we managed to get through the Three R's, with Elf trying MathSteps instead of Saxon Math. He did not care for it. After that, the kids played with their static projects again, and we read another chapter in The History of US. We watched birds bathing in our front yard fountain and talked about why they clean themselves so much, and how. Elf read Switch On, Switch Off to Fairy, then he read two chapters in Stuart Little since he failed to read one on Tuesday.

Today - They watched an episode of Head Rush, and are now trying to come up with ways to allow a toy man to fly/float in the air without crashing. Two of us can feel colds coming on... sore throats and all that, so we're a little slow today. I've been reading and re-reading my own post about less constrained homeschooling, and am coming to believe that what we're doing, focusing on the Three R's with the remainder being mostly child-led, is working well so far. They've also played with a Lego Challenge kit that came in the mail, and Elf has decided he wants to participate in a series of engineering challenges offered by another homeschooling mom. The first one we'll do has to do with irrigation, so we're revisiting Roman aquaducts and ancient shadufs. Life seems to be providing us plenty of interesting learning jaunts without too much planning!

Other than that, I am looking forward to a couple of weeks vacation from work shortly, and a 4 day camping trip! We're also spending time trying to decide if it is squash or watermelons coming up through the lawn out back. I think it's both... we'll see! My BIL (who lives with us) put in a lawn from seed not long ago, where the failed veggie garden was, and we've been watching with interest as various fruits and vegetables made their way up through the grass. When we can harvest something from them, we'll worry about removing them. I'm also planning out some raised beds/boxes for next spring. And we're gearing up for 4H next week. Due to my schedule, we'll be missing out on a couple of projects we'd really like to have done, but we can do fun things at home too, and we'll still have plenty of projects we can do! The kids have their 4H t-shirts and caps ready to wear as Sergeant-at-Arms. My planned project doesn't start until October, so I feel pretty relaxed about that right now.

And that's about it! We have math, reading, and fencing still to do before I go to work at 7 (only for 4 hours), so I'd better wrap up my ramblings.